ZOOMING WITH BAIRDO AND MURF
A mere global pandemic wasn’t going to stop Michael Clark from interviewing racing greats, although the lockdown did rule out having lunch with Craig Baird and Greg Murphy. Instead, they zoomed
AZoom catch-up with Craig Baird and Greg Murphy during Level 3 revealed that the pair have much more in common than both being winners of the New Zealand Grand Prix (NZGP). Yes, they both started in Formula Ford and ended their careers as professionals racing tin-tops in Australia, but they’ve also remained involved in the sport — Craig as a driver standard advisor and Greg, recently, as a pit-lane reporter.
I begin by remarking how comparatively young they both were when they started in cars. They both raced karts as nippers, which they agree is almost obligatory for those with toplevel ambitions, but I hadn’t appreciated just how young Craig was when he first climbed into an actual racing car. He takes up the story.
“I was 14 and was coming back from a karting meeting in Hastings with my mum and dad,” he says. “We found a Formula Ford in Autotrader and that night we bought it. It was a 1971 Titan, and the following weekend we raced on the Pukekohe Club circuit, by which time I’d turned 15.”
While he loved the look of his first racing car, Craig is less complimentary about its performance. By the time he was armed with a more modern Van Diemen, he was immediately a contender. I wonder if it all came naturally.
“It was kind of strange for me, because I did some club events before I started doing championship rounds so it gave me a bleed-in period,” he says. “I didn’t just jump straight into a competitive car and end up in the national championship, so when I did jump into a good car I actually found it easier than my last few seasons of karting, because that was just so competitive. Formula Ford was almost a little bit like slow motion.”
KARTING CREDENTIALS
For Greg Murphy, the opportunity to break into Formula Ford came via the 1990 Shell Scholarship, and he agrees with Craig’s summary of the transition from the frenetic world of karting.
“I know exactly what Bairdo is saying, because it [karting] was and remains incredibly competitive close-quarter racing and is such an essential stepping stone that you pretty much have to go through to be able to make it in racing cars. For various reasons I didn’t ever expect to make that transition. Bairdo was a couple of years ahead, so we took a lot of interest in his progress because we knew the
“It was kind of strange for me because I did some club events before I started doing championship rounds so it gave me a bleed-in period”
Bairds through the karting scene. We became followers and we had a lot of interest in seeing how he went in both Formula Ford and Atlantic. It gave us an attachment to see how he did.”
Murf leaves us in no doubt about the significance of winning that scholarship.
“I managed to squeeze through against the likes of Ashley Stitchbury, who was also looking to break into Formula Ford at that time; we were boisterous competitors at the Hawke’s Bay kart track,” he says.
Murf and Stitchbury, who went on to be a double NZ Formula Ford champion and as good as any, were two of five karters in contention for the award.
“We all battled it out around many kart tracks, so to be the one to carry it off was a pretty amazing feat,” he says. “It took a little time to get to understand these race cars. My first event in a Formula Ford was at the Wellington Street Circuit, which was a fair old mind-blowing experience. Up until then I’d been running around Manfeild — the only racetrack I’d been on — and now I’m thrust, unexpectedly, into a support category at Wellington.”
Murf recalls that a fellow competitor “out-braked himself and tore off the rear corner of my ’87 Van Diemen”.
So much for his car racing debut. I mention first becoming aware of just how good this young guy was when he topped the time sheets on a greasy Teretonga. He recalls it clearly.
FORMULA 1 MIRAGE
“That was a leveller because you had to ‘feel’ racing a kart in the wet and a Formula Ford was really just like a big kart strapped to your back.”
Meanwhile, Craig had already won the NZ Formula Ford title. As Murf was breaking into car racing, the Hamiltonian was a leading contender in Atlantic.
I wonder if, as a teenage champion, Greg Murphy saw Formula 1 (F1) in his future.
“That was a leveller because you had to ‘feel’ racing a kart in the wet and a Formula Ford was really just like a big kart strapped to your back”
“Yes,” he replies, “I kind of thought it was because Formula Ford champions before me had won the Driver to Europe scholarship, which meant you went to the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. There were a few things happening behind the scenes that year, so I got a ticket but I didn’t actually get to jump into a car like others had before me. So I ended up at the festival just as a spectator.”
In the bar at Brands, Craig happened to meet the guy who ran the race school there. He gave Craig a job, meaning he had the chance to spend more time in England. He puts his F1 hopes and dreams failing to materialize down to it being a ‘funny era’. He cites the example of older compatriot Paul Radisich, who, he says, “had a heap of talent and was as good as anyone in the world, and dragged the last 10th out of everything he drove, but we missed that Amon/
Mclaren/hulme era. They got there through hard work and brains, for sure, but there were opportunities here and there, which the likes of Radisich, myself, and Murf — and a lot of others since — never really got.”
MIND THE GAP
Bairdo is in fact stating what has been said many times: New Zealand didn’t run out of talent between the ‘trio at the top’ and Scott Dixon, but there is no doubt that while he, Paul Radisich, and Murf were good enough to make F1 or Indycar, the mentors who helped get others to the top weren’t around at that time.
Craig now acknowledges that the “F1 dream I had was very unrealistic” but takes his hat off to Dixon.
“Scott delivered both in the car and outside the car.”
There is no hint of regret or bitterness when Craig says of his era, “We were just a little bit numbed — we didn’t go anywhere.”
I ask about his move to Formula Atlantic.
There is no doubt that while he, Paul Radisich, and Murf were good enough to make F1 or Indycar, the mentors who helped get others to the top weren’t around at that time
“It was quite a step, to be honest. I drove Graeme Lawrence’s Ralt at Pukekohe and I was quite shocked at how quick it was. People don’t understand how quick they were with the ground effect and the big tyres. People ask me: ‘If you could get back any car you raced, which one would it be?’ Well, if I could have my RT4 in that bright Caltex red sitting in my shed then I’d be a very happy boy.”
THE RALT RT4 SWEET SPOT
Murf is nodding in agreement at the mention of the Ralt RT4. He also got an unexpected leg-up into Formula Atlantic while he was still trying to mount a proper Formula Ford campaign.
“We had a very tight budget,” he recalls. “My dad and I were knocking on doors trying to find out what this word ‘sponsorship’ was all about, which is the norm for people so passionate about a sport that requires so much money, but, as for getting the funds for a proper FF [Formula Ford] attack, we just weren’t able to put it together.”
Then something amazing happened in a very last-minute deal.
“We got to know Kenny [Smith] and he said, ‘I will give you an ’86 Ralt RT4 and an engine but it needs a tidy-up so you’ll need to put a heap of work into preparing the car. There’s no cost involved and all you have to do is return it to me in the same condition at the end of the season’. We thought that that just didn’t make any sense, because it was a Formula Atlantic car and surely it would cost a lot more money. But Kenny helped us understand what a budget would be, so we backed ourselves. The beauty of it was that the prize money was substantial.”
Because it was an older car it ran in Class 2 — at the time Craig was a top man in Class 1. Despite what Murf describes as “a little bit of a learning curve”, he found the transition “just amazing — I loved it and it just drew me into the whole concept of wings and slicks”.
He also recalls that the prize money pool from winning the Class 2 championship was, “the first and last time in my career with money in our pockets!”
NEXT MONTH: Winning the NZGP and the road to being paid to race.
“We had a very tight budget. My dad and I were knocking on doors trying to find out what this word ‘sponsorship’ was all about”